Bobblehead: Olanzapine cessation

[morgana]

hello Bobblehead, i also take zyprexa unfortunately. i read in one of your posts that you urinate alot....zyprexa causes constipation in me and really bad bladder problems too....i take a Super Strength Cranberry 2500 supplement if its bad, especially at night time, as it prevents me from sleeping having to pass urine every hour is a pain...i find it really helps...You mentioned it in an old post do you still experience it as you lower your dosage?....do you know anyone else who also has this problem? let me know cheers morgana

[Bobblehead]

Hi @Emily02 Thanks for checking in. I haven't been on this forum in months. Been quite a journey in the last several months. How have you been?

 

After a month of reinstating Olanzapine it stopped working for sleep, it also stopped working as an antipsychotic, I increased the dosage and it didn't help. So I slowly tapered down to zero and have been off olanzapine for over a month now. But from what I have read, whether people taper slow or fast with this medication they still have horrible insomnia. I went slow but here I am with insomnia again. And this time reinstating won't help.

 

The good news is this time I didn't have most of the withdrawal effects I experienced before, except for some severe agitation and of course brutal insomnia. The agitation is absolutely brutal, I just lay in bed suffering, but I found a fix.

 

I have been taking 100mg of l-theanine every 3-4 hours and that completely alleviates the really bad agitation I experience, and helps a lot with the anxiety too.

 

As for sleep I absolutely cannot sleep, not even for 1 minute, it's brutal. I spoke with my doctor and we tried a  bunch of meds (Benadryl, Doxylamine, promethezine, lorazepam, trazodone, gabapentin, zopilcone, zolpidem but all of them were not that good, or didn't work at all) I ended up on 2mg of clonazepam, it was the only thing that worked decently, I then went down to 1.5mg, and now am on 1mg of clonazepam for sleep, I also supplement with 3000mg of Glycine and 200mg of l-theanine 1/2 hour before bed.

 

The good thing about glycine is it is beneficial for sleep/schizophrenia/diabetes so its a win/win/win supplement for me.

 

Benzos like clonazepam are not the best sleep aids, they mess with your sleep architecture, but glycine is suppose to help with restful REM sleep by working somehow with serotonin so combining them gives me a little better quality sleep

 

Between the clonazepam, l-theanine and glycine I get between 4-7 hours of sleep a night, not the greatest, I would prefer 8-9 but I am functioning. I am able to work part time. One problem is once I wake up I usually can't get back to sleep, that sucks on nights where I only get 4 hours of sleep, I usually just lay in bed resting for a few hours after that..

 

Since Olanzapine affects 17 different receptors in my brain I can only assume things are going a little haywire right now. I just hope one day things return to normal and I am able to sleep without sleep aids like I use to before I started Olanzapine, but from what I read online that could take a couple years, who knows, there are a lot of horror stories and few success stories online.

 

I guess the next battle will be to taper off and withdrawal from clonazepam, but that is a while away, not until my ability to sleep better returns, if it ever does.

[Bobblehead]

On 3/29/2021 at 12:38 AM, morgana said:

hello Bobblehead, i also take zyprexa unfortunately. i read in one of your posts that you urinate alot....zyprexa causes constipation in me and really bad bladder problems too....i take a Super Strength Cranberry 2500 supplement if its bad, especially at night time, as it prevents me from sleeping having to pass urine every hour is a pain...i find it really helps...You mentioned it in an old post do you still experience it as you lower your dosage?....do you know anyone else who also has this problem? let me know cheers morgana

 

@morgana Unfortunately I don't know anyone else that has this problem, but I've read about all kinds of weird problems online from people quitting olanzapine, things I didn't experience like nausea or dizziness for example. I just drink less now so I  pee less, plus I think things have improved naturally over the last several months, when I reinstated olanzapine a few months ago it just stopped working in pretty much every way, this time when i tapered off it the withdrawals were not as bad.  The problem with my insomnia after quitting olanzapine is that once I take my sleeping pills and fall to sleep, if i wake up because I have to pee I usually can't get back to sleep, for that reason I don't drink anything after 5-6pm so I am not up several times during the night peeing.

[morgana]

i am sorry to hear you are doing it tough @Bobblehead, i also am doing it tough, at present i get no more than 1 to 2 hrs  of dreaming sleep, but hopefully that wont be for too long...as i just changed the way i take my zyprexa a week ago, before that i was getting 6 to 7 hrs sleep...but not deep sleep unfortunately....i havnt experienced a deep sleep since april this year...i wish you all the best and hope you can eventually sleep again..just hang in there....it cant go on forever can it?

[Bobblehead]

16 hours ago, morgana said:

It cant go on forever can it?

 

I hope not but the number of success stories on the Internet are few and far between.

[JohnBanes]

There are sadly a lot of stories of people who have only half-survived the Olanzapine taper due to indefinite insomnia.  So far, I am in that sad camp.

[DataGuy]

@Bobbleheadand @morgana I have seen a few people in withdrawal who have had the problem of needing to urinate frequently. I had that myself for about 18 months before it went away. It is definitely a relief to not feel oddly thirsty all the time and have to look for a bathroom everywhere you go : )

[morgana]

i thought it was just because i lived in a hot climate as to why i was always thirsty and always thinking i have a urinary tract infection...but i am sure its from the zyprexa...its good to know it will go away eventually @DataGuy thankyou!

 

sounds like we are in the same boat @JohnBanes, however for some reason i always have a feeling of "hope" that i will one day sleep deeply again, if i gave up on this "hope", i would probably give up living....so i continue doing all the right things to help me sleep..and hang on to this "hope"...its the only thing i have left!

[hayduke]

Yeah, I figured all the trips to the toilet in the middle of the night was due to incipient diabetes. 

 

Not had alcohol for a month now and finding generally a glass or two of water will get me through the night and 0-1 pee excursions, previously it was several.

 

Cheers

[hayduke]

13 hours ago, JohnBanes said:

There are sadly a lot of stories of people who have only half-survived the Olanzapine taper due to indefinite insomnia.  So far, I am in that sad camp.

 

A lot of people report tapering olanzapine a lot faster than is generally advised here.  Sometimes, because they didn't find the site or other compassionate tapering resource until after, but also sometimes because they just feel impatient or bulletproof and press on through symptoms that would better be heeded.

 

I've always taken lack of sleep as a primary indicator to hold or make slower cuts.